After losing their cat, Sushi, during the 2011 Texas wildfires, the Maitland's thought they would never see her again. When she finally returned home recently they were pleasantly surprised.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

A Cedar Creek couple was astounded and delighted recently when their feline pet showed up two years after being lost in the Labor Day fires.

Doug Maitland and Sharen Armstrong-Maitland said they had given up hope of ever finding their beloved cat, Sushi.

“I was up on a ladder painting the house when I saw a small white cat lurking in the weeds beside the lake,” Doug said. “We thought we were hallucinating. Dogs are loyal and they will come back but we never thought a cat would.”

Bedraggled, skinny and very hungry, she never stopped eating out of the bowl of food while they carried her back to the house.

“Not in too bad a shape for surviving on her own through several drought summers and two winters,” Sharen said.

During the fires, the couple was forced to evacuate their home for several days.

Their dogs came with, but Sushi went missing during all the noise and activity.

After losing their cat, Sushi, during the 2011 Texas wildfires, the Maitland's thought they would never see her again. When she finally returned home recently they were pleasantly surprised.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

A Cedar Creek couple was astounded and delighted recently when their feline pet showed up two years after being lost in the Labor Day fires.

Doug Maitland and Sharen Armstrong-Maitland said they had given up hope of ever finding their beloved cat, Sushi.

“I was up on a ladder painting the house when I saw a small white cat lurking in the weeds beside the lake,” Doug said. “We thought we were hallucinating. Dogs are loyal and they will come back but we never thought a cat would.”

Bedraggled, skinny and very hungry, she never stopped eating out of the bowl of food while they carried her back to the house.

“Not in too bad a shape for surviving on her own through several drought summers and two winters,” Sharen said.

During the fires, the couple was forced to evacuate their home for several days.

Their dogs came with, but Sushi went missing during all the noise and activity.

There's more

“People with megaphones telling us to leave, helicopters going over
the house dredging water from our reservoir lake to drop on neighborhood
fires, fire volunteers setting break fires around us and amplified car
traffic as people left,” Sharen recalls.

The couple searched for
many weeks and emailed pictures to neighbors, but no luck. They
eventually gave up on ever seeing their feline friend again and later
took in two orphaned cats after the fires, but they missed Sushi.

“We
were absolutely floored when we realized it was Sushi that had come
back after all that time,” she said. “I always had a small hope, but as
time went on, we thought she had either found a new home or met a bad
end.”

During the first few days, Sushi was kept separate from the
other household pets because she became very aggressive with them -
unlike her temperament before, according to Sharen.

“We guessed
she’d become tougher and wilder from having to survive on her own and
she didn’t settle down, but stayed anxious and tense during those days,”
she said. “When we finally let her have the run of the house and access
to the pet door going outside, there was another surprise.”

The couple discovered a tiny black kitten with Sushi on the front porch.

Sharen
suspects the reason for Sushi’s anxious behavior was because the little
kitten was hiding outside waiting for her, with no food.

“Somehow
Sushi had adopted the lost kitten, or the kitten had adopted her in the
wild and she brought it home with her,” she said.

Sushi was neutered at six months and has never been a mother cat, but she allowed the kitten to nurse on occasion.

“She was very protective,” Sharen said. “Not letting any of the other animals anywhere near little Ninja.”

Ninja was a feral kitten, but has slowly warmed up to his new owners.

“Sushi
showed him that we’re OK by rubbing on us and allowing us to hold and
pet her while Ninja watched,” Sharen said. “She trained him about the
pet door and the cat box and they’ve taken over the screened-in back
porch as their own territory, spending all their time playing and
wrestling and grooming each other.”

The Maitlands are still in
shock over getting Sushi back after two years, but they are so glad to
have her back and happy to have her kitten friend, too.

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